He was convinced of having been despoiled by his victims, and his discernment altered by this “paranoid delirium”. Hubert Caouissin, accused of having killed and dismembered four members of his in-laws, was in “a state of paranoid self-defense,” said a psychiatrist on Friday, on the ninth day of the trial.
This spoliation, “it is not an idea, it is a conviction” of Hubert Caouissin, who had acquired the “certainty of an imminent danger of death threatening them”, him, his wife and especially their son eight-year-old, explained Doctor Daniel Zagury before the Loire-Atlantique Assize Court.
A “delusional gold rush”
Years before the act, Hubert Caouissin had convinced himself that his brother-in-law Pascal Troadec had stolen gold bars discovered in a family apartment, and had embarked on a “delusional gold rush. “, Putting himself” in search of tangible proof “of the existence of the loot, detailed the expert. According to Dr. Zagury, who intervened in other cases such as that of Michel Fourniret or Céline Bourgeon, the mother of little Fiona, “delirium is not error”.
“Even if the gold is somewhere (which the investigation failed to demonstrate), that does not contradict the fact that Hubert Caouissin is delusional. “It is this” delirium of interpretation “which” forced him to go to the home “of the victims in February 2017, where he killed Pascal and Brigitte Troadec and their children, Charlotte, 18, and Sébastien, 21 years, with doe kicks. “Even with hindsight, he does not see how he could have done otherwise”, describes the doctor, assuring that Hubert Caouissin is still in the grip of this delirium which allows him to “survive psychically”. “If he loses his delirium, he is faced with absolute despair,” he stressed.
Not a psychopathic imbalance
Dr Zagury described a very talkative patient, showing no signs of schizophrenia. “He is not an imbalanced psychopath, he is not usually devoid of empathy, but has a basic emotional fragility,” he detailed. According to him, this type of delirium corresponds precisely to the “reasoning follies”, described by doctors Sérieux and Capgras in 1909.
Regarding the dismemberment of bodies, the expert noted that “what is particular is the duration, the number of bodies, the way in which he talks about it and the particular persistence that he had to make disappear” all traces of his crimes.
The trial is scheduled until July 9.